Kristian Frostborne's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

Cael's oath was won, but the lord had named a price Kristian had not yet paid. So Kristian rode to the Ice-Carved Mountain Keep, alone, to settle it. The keep rose from the frost like a blade of glass. He came bearing nothing. No chest of gold. No deed to land. A king who begs with empty hands cools every pact he makes. Cael met him in a high, cold hall. He kept to the shadow, as always, his frozen jaw turned away. "You come to collect my testimony," Cael said. "But I have not heard your gift. A witness who names the duchess trades his life for yours. What do you trade for that?" Kristian had planned this. "I know what you want. You want your daughter to wed my prince." The lord went still. "You have no prince. You have no heir." "I have myself," Kristian said. "I am the throne. Bind your line to mine, and your daughter is not a lord's cursed child. She is a queen." A door opened at the hall's far end. She stepped through. Cael's daughter, Eira Frostveil, moved like frost gathering on glass. Her pale hair fell past a gown stitched with snowflakes. She carried a small winged creature in her arms, a snow leopard cub, its feathered wings folded soft against her sleeve. She had heard every word. "You would wed me to buy my father's voice," Eira said. Her tone was ice. "Like a crate of grain." "No." Kristian met her eyes. "I would wed you because your father fights alone, and so do I. A vow ends that for us both." Eira set the cub down. It padded across the floor and pressed against Kristian's boot. She watched it choose him. Something in her face shifted. "My daughter is not a bargain," Cael said, but his voice had cracked. He wanted this. Kristian saw it. "Then let her choose," Kristian said. "I offer no chest of gold. I offer a crown, and a war shared. Her curse hidden behind a queen's title. Your keep guarded by a throne." The hall held its breath. Eira lifted a single ice-crystal lily from a table near the wall. Its tiny bells shimmered, pale and cold. She crossed the floor and placed it in Kristian's hand. "Then I will stand beside you at the throne," she said. "And I will hear my father speak against the duchess." Cael stepped from the shadow at last. He gripped Kristian's arm. "The pact holds. I testify. My daughter weds you." Kristian had his witness bound and his true love near. But the winter feast still came. Now the duchess would not only find a king to poison. She would find a bride to poison too.